ChatGPT gets its first streaming video app

Streaming app Tubi has become the first video streaming service to launch a direct interface in the ChatGPT app itself. Users can now add the Tubi app from ChatGPT's app store and use prompts to get a curated streaming experience. While services like YouTube and Amazon offer AI-powered suggestions, Tubi positions itself as the first streaming service to build an experience using ChatGPT's App Directory.

To use Tubi in ChatGPT, users need to first install it from the ChatGPT App Directory. Once done, they can use @Tubi to prompt the service for a curated list of movies depending on what they want to watch. This could be genre-specific, moods, or a half-conceived film vibe that they can't quite put into words. ChatGPT would then serve up a curated and interactive list of movies for them.

“Streaming should feel effortless, and as chatbots and AI agents are becoming a common way people navigate the internet, Tubi is expanding its discovery experience to meet viewers in the moment they’re expressing intent in their own words,” Mike Bidgoli, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Tubi, said in a blog post.

“At the core of Tubi is a deeply scaled personalization and discovery system, trained on more than 1 billion monthly hours of viewing from over 100 million active users. Recent AI breakthroughs are compounding that advantage, enhancing how Tubi interprets intent, reasons over content, and connects viewers to the right titles faster. This launch brings that system into a conversational interface, making it seamless to go from an idea to the perfect match and content rabbit hole.”

The first of many?

AI-powered streaming recommendations have been a thing for years, albeit limited to the apps of service providers. Services like Netflix and Amazon have spent years refining algorithms to surface content within their own apps. What’s different here is the shift in where that discovery happens.

Instead of pulling users into its platform, Tubi is pushing its experience into the AI interface itself — effectively treating the de-factor face of AI, ChatGPT as a new front door.

With millions turning to ChatGPT for recommendations for things like trips, food, and movies, it makes a lot of sense for a streaming service provider to meet its customers where they are. What isn’t clear is whether such a move would resonate with consumers in appreciable numbers, or whether companies like Amazon with its Prime Video would follow suit with their own apps.

One thing's for certain: with Tubi having over 100 million users and ChatGPT having over 900 million weekly active users, this experiment has the reach to test that idea in the real world and potentially set the tone for what comes next.